Oh, CRAP.

Wizards of the Coast announced today that they are putting an end to Living Greyhawk D&D in 2008. This sucks. Big time. Apparently they are starting up a new Living Forgotten Realms world, but my characters will be gone. (sob) Since there is just over a year to go, hopefully I can at least get one of my characters high enough to retire…but it SUCKS. Bambi and Lychee are low enough level that I can start them over again with no real issues. But Cecelia and Brenna I had all kinds of plans and ideas for. Brenna just made 9th level and Cecelia’s special mission looks like it is finally coming through after almost a year of waiting. We’ll see what happens — there’s been some talk of a petition to keep LG going, and where do I sign THAT? — but right now I am really bummed about this.

Random Thoughts/Houseguests/Frustrating Schedules

I was driving the other day and had some random thoughts go through my head…

Looking at the man in front of me dressed in brown corduroy pants and a blue and white striped polo shirt…he looked like a very big kindergartener. Riding a Harley-Davidson.

Flipping through stations and coming across the R&B/Jazz station, and I’m instantly back in high school in Kathy’s mother’s car on the way home from school every day.

Wondering what was going on when the van behind me swerved around and passed me to run a red light I had just stopped for.

There were more but I forget them right now. Hey…we have company and I’m as close to hung-over as I ever get. (after a pomegranate martini and almost half a bottle of mead last night) I’m groggier than normal for me in the morning.

Oh the hilarity last night of coming up with ideas for Wiggles signs with L. They were BAD. WRONG. FUNNY. WRONG. Did I mention the total wrongness of them? Park your big red car in my driveway indeed.

D&D last night and K&B brought me a birthday cake. Then they all had me laughing so hard I couldn’t blow out the candles! M&M brought pomegranate liqueur and B&K brought Mead. Yummy yummy. The pomegranate liqueur mixes very nicely with orange vodka. I still really want to find and try pomegranate wine someday though.

Hmm….I seem to have a trend of getting pomegranate things for my birthday that are either alcoholic or fun to mix with alcohol!

The boys were rambunctious last night to say the least. Houseguest/sleeping in sleeping bags/D&D night all adds up to overexcitement for them!

I was chatting with ST the other day and she told me the date for her wedding party. I was so excited to go…until N informed me that it was Mepacon weekend. So he won’t go, and I thought about it but driving a 3 and 5 year old 2.5 hours to go to a party where the ONLY person I’d know would be the bride…not so much. I had been hoping to make a weekend out of it too…go to ST & D’s party, then visit with K & D before they have the new baby. Oh well. We’ll see ST & D at Renaissance Faire hopefully before their wedding, and then we invited them up for dinner the weekend after their party. So we’ll still get to see them at least.

WIGGLES CONCERT TODAY!!!!! WOOHOO!

Cons, tats, impending visits, and falling out of bed.

Last week N decided he wants to go to a con that was out at Penn State. He asked what it would take for me to let him go. I told him we have to get the house appraised and start taking steps to get preapproval for a mortgage to move. I talked to B from MOMS Club, who is a realtor and she’s going to give us an appraisal whenever we are ready.

Then I told him I want my next tattoo. I’m going to get the knotwork dolphin on my ankle, since I don’t have a firm design yet for the crows. He said he’s going to design a t-shirt that says something like “I am only at this con because my wife wants a new tattoo” only his wording was better. He’s got two cons he plans to go to later this year, I am thinking of going to one of them with him. But I like gaming in the comfort of my own home, with people I know, for free. The idea of paying to play with strangers just doesn’t really appeal to me all that much. And I don’t get into the politics enough to really care about the interactives for the most part.

I’ve got to get ready for L and I to come visit. We made a good start in the guest room, rearranged the furniture so the a/c vent is at least exposed enough to actually work. N is moving more stuff up to his office and I want to get the desk and floor cleared off. Once he clears off the second bookcase I can move the piles of books from the floor and desk onto that. We have a sickening amount of filing to do. The sad part is we have put this off for so long that it is now monstrous. Once we get our filing system in place it’ll be a cinch to keep up.

I think I’m going to bring the small bookcase downstairs and use it as a shoe shelf by the front door. He wants to move the computer desk upstairs too, but that will have to be completely taken apart. If I get far enough with the other stuff this week I just might start doing that. It would be theraputic to destroy something, even if it is only temporarily destroyed.

I’m exhausted. Last night was an insomnia night, punctuated by K falling out of bed. He whacked his cheek on the nightstand and woke up screaming. He’s fine, and fell back asleep quickly. R woke up from the crying and asked what was wrong. I told him K fell out of bed and he shouted “I’m sorry that happened to you, K” and rolled over and went back to sleep. Brothers.

Fourth entry today, aka the boys are asleep and I don’t feel like cleaning the house…

Your Score: Pure Geek

34 % Nerd, 56% Geek, 39% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Geek, earning you the title of: Pure Geek.

It’s not that you’re a school junkie, like the nerd, and you don’t really stand out in a crowd, like the dork, you just have some interests that aren’t quite mainstream. Perhaps it’s anime, perhaps it’s computers, perhaps it’s bottlecaps, perhaps it’s all of those and more. Your interests take you to events and gatherings that are filled with people you find unusual and beyond-the-pale, but you don’t quite consider yourself “of that crowd.” Instead, you consider yourself to be fairly normal.

Which, you are.

Congratulations! You’re the one on the RIGHT!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you’re interested in any of the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Professional Wrestling

Love & Sexuality

America/Politics

Thanks Again! — THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Updatey Insanity

Yeah so rather than post updates on each individual event with titles and stuff, since it’s 4:30 AM I’m just going to do one monster update post. Take that, organization!!!

Here goes!

We went to New Jersey Kingdom Renaissance Faire on closing day, July 1. It was a lot of fun! When we first got there, K and R helped one of the cast members (we never did get her name) make up a brand-new song about Three Blind Knights. “Three blind knights, three blind knights, See how they joust, see how they joust…” I don’t remember the rest of it. Hey, did I mention it’s four thirty in the morning? So anyway the nice bard-lady also bestowed upon K the King’s Bib as a reward for creating such a song.

Here’s the boys getting knighted by King Arthur, K is wearing the King’s Bib. In the background you can also see the costume place where I want to get a corset from: (see the one with the green skirt and black & green corset – they had one like that only the green in the corset was celtic knotwork. It was gorgeous!!

We promised R a while back that he could get his first “real” sword when he was five. He has a foam one, and a small plastic one, but we got him his first wooden one at the faire. K was jealous and took out his frustrations on Sir Bedivere:

K believes he is King of All He Sees:

R with his new sword, I don’t have a better pic yet:

The joust:

R was fascinated:

The day after Faire, F arrived to stay the week and help out with some stuff. We got the boys toys sorted through and some other random cleaning and yardwork done. We took a break to celebrate the Fourth of July. It was on the chilly side and it drizzled, but that didn’t stop us!

A nice shot of F:

Sparklers!!

R popped bubbles with his sparkler, K tried to catch them in his bug net:

A morning glory bud: I love taking pictures of flowers!

I’ve had an idea in my head for a while to get some pictures of the boys with their hair all wild in a woodsy setting. They look like little elves even without the pointy ears anyway. Thanks to F’s help, I did the session last week and got some neat pics out of it:

This next one is my favorite from the session.

So that is pretty much what I’ve been up to. We have a book club meeting tonight and then I’ll post my thoughts on The Thirteenth Tale. Thursday night we’re going to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I’m looking forward to the movie, although it is all overshadowed by the book coming out the following week! I’m looking forward to and seriously dreading the last book all at the same time. I’m already sad that it’s the last book, and I’m terrified of how it’s all going to end. I think I can trust J.K. not to pull a Stephen King Dark Tower ending on us. At least I hope I can!!!!!!!!! I can even handle it if Harry does die, just so long as it’s not pointless.

Some randomness to start the weekend

Where else but our D&D group can we talk about an unabsorbent manticore? (we met up with a singularly stupid one last night; and I made my not the most absorbent tampon in the box comment to K, although I don’t think anyone else heard it

HOW DID I MISS A LEVEL!?!?!?!!????!! Brenna is supposed to be 8th level already! How did I miss that??????? I can’t wait to level her, if I put my stat bump into strength, along with her new belt of giant strength that gives her a 20 strength. Next I need to work on that 18 Armor Class.

And just while we are wallowing in my total geekiness, how about the new shirt N got me…”Would you like to check your hit points…before or after I slap you? There aren’t too many places I can wear it, (just imagine dropping the boys off at school in it, LOL) but I love it

Renaissance Faire tomorrow!! C, C & S are going with us and M might be meeting us there, too. The boys are so excited. Once again I am astounded at R’s memory. We told this morning we are going to Faire tomorrow and he starts going on about how he can’t wait to fight the demon knight…which was part of last year’s PA Ren Faire. We aren’t planning to go to that one this year but to the NJ one tomorrow and we’re hoping to get to the Maryland Ren Faire in the fall.

Off to do some errands today, nothing big. Never got out yesterday so we still need to get to the pet store, and do some shopping. Figure out if we’re wearing street clothes or garb tomorrow, that sort of thing.

M, if you see this today call me so we can work out plans to meet tomorrow, if you still plan to come!!

The music for today’s entry is brought to you by Beatlemania Now, who we saw earlier this week and I came away from it with that song as an earworm that I have NOT been able to shake!

Testing, One, Two…Testing

We’re gaming tonight and I tried making the delicious Watercress & Avacodo Salsa that S made for J’s last week. It’s my first time making it, and I taste tested it and it tasted fine to me, but N says it’s too heavy on the onion and garlic. We’ll see what everyone else says!

Wish me luck!! I’ll post opinions, later. Probably sometime tomorrow. If people like it, I’ll even post the recipe.

On another note, we REALLY need to get a family picture either tonight or tomorrow morning. Mom wants one for her trip, and we haven’t taken a successful family picture in quite a while. J and J tried at K’s birthday sitting but either I hate me, N hates him, or the boys were acting up.

Anything else to say? No, not really. I’m still bummed that my special mission hasn’t come through so I can’t play Cecelia through this mod, but I’ll still have fun with Brenna. She just got a Belt of Giant Strength so she’s pretty rockin’ right now!

The perils of Ren Faire Magicians

N just called me, he is eating lunch with the boys. R was helping stir the soup, and proclaimed, “Watch me stir this soup for your entertainment pleasure!!!”

Which is a line directly stolen from the magician at the Ren Faire we went to a few weeks ago.

Guess I should be glad he didn’t pick up on the “watch me do a backflip into my own navel” or “see the man with two kidneys” lines.

More from the faire:
It was muddy. ankle-deep puddle muddy. Good thing N and I had our boots on!! I had been considering wearing my gillies. REALLY glad I didn’t, that would have been icky!!

I submitted some pictures to their photo contest…hope I win something!!

It was closing weekend of a new (first year) Faire. It was nice, but unfortunately a lot of the vendors and acts had pulled out early. Leaving us with the magician, a chess match and a joust for entertainment. It was all pretty well done though – especially the joust. They got that one right!!

The boys got knighted by the king…they loved that!

We are going to let R get his first wooden sword next year when he is five. I am thinking we will get K a shield at that time so he doesn’t feel left out. Besides, he will probably need it…

And you wonder why I love playing D&D?

A few random quotes from last night’s adventure:

If ‘penis’ is her first word I’m going to smack you.

Goblin #4 licks his mace and attacks…

This die is cursed….next!

I’m looking for some gosgeen…grosgreen…gringos…GROSGRAIN ribbon!!!

Well, lass, if you WANT to do it with an accent.

Talk me out of shaving the dwarves, please.

I dub thee “Lady Big Orc Protect my Butt”

Encounter #3, in which the group realizes…”Shit, there isn’t a healer in the party!!”

Nevermind the park

We were supposed to go to the park with the moms club this morning. We ended up blowing it off because it was like 100 degrees and soupy outside. We stayed in the ac instead. Well, we did get food shopping which desperately needed doing, but of course I forget the film I need to get developed.

We had a nice lunch with Mimi and Gigi though. I love that we get to see them so often. Gigi has glaucoma in one eye, but otherwise is in absolutely amazing health for being almost 91 years old! I hope I’m in half as good shape as she is if I ever reach that age!

Got some house cleaning done and have some friends coming over to play dungeons and dragons tonight, the debut of my new barbarian character, Bambi. Looking forward to it!

No workout today, next week I’ll start a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule that I’ll try to stick with as a rule.

Oh, and I got to talk to M today, TWICE! Woohoo! Random stuff, nothing big! It’s always great to chat with your best friend though. I still wish we lived closer together. But we make do.